Debra Chasnoff

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Debra Chasnoff is a nationally recognized champion of using film as an organizing tool for social justice campaigns, and a pioneering leader in the international movement working to create safe and welcoming schools and communities. Debra's highly acclaimed documentaries addressing youth and bias issues are widely hailed by educators and advocates as among the best tools available today to help open up dialogue and activism around many of the most challenging issues affecting young people's lives and school environments.

Her films include Straightlaced-How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up, about the gender and sexuality pressures that teens and young adults face today. Her other award-winning films, produced with Helen S. Cohen, include It's Elementary-Talking About Gay Issues in School, Let's Get Real (about bias and bullying) That's a Family! (supporting youth growing up in diverse family structures) and the Academy Award-winning Deadly Deception-General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment. Her first film, Choosing Children, explored the once unheard of idea that lesbians and gay men could become parents after coming out.

In addition to dozens of film festival awards, Debra is the recipient of the Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation Fellowship for outstanding non-profit leadership, the Pathfinder Award from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and the first-ever alumnae achievement award in documentary filmmaking from Wellesley College. Debra has been a featured speaker at dozens of colleges and conferences, and was recently named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. She is the founder of GroundSpark and co-creator of our renowned Respect For All Project. She has served the organization in a directing capacity since 1982.